My wife and I have, of late, discovered NetFlix. For those of you not familiar with it, it is an online DVD rental place. You pay $20 a month and can rent as many DVDs as you want. The only restriction is that you can only have three out at a time. You pick from a rather huge selection online and they mail it to you. Typically the turn around time is only two or three days. You can keep the DVD as long as you want and then when you've watched it you just slip it into an enclosed envelope and send it back. No stamps to worry about.
Why do I bring this up? Because of the wonderful resources this opens up to the average user. If you are like me, your local Blockbuster or Hollywood Video doesn't exactly have a good range of films. There foreign and classic movie sections are often left wanting. More importantly many excellent TV series are never carried. I mean great BBC adaptations of books or original series: things like The Prisoner, Father Cadfael, Sherlock Holmes, and many others. Yes they occasionally get rebroadcast on PBS' Mystery. But then you are held captive to the whims of that programming. With NetFlix you can watch them when you want. Further it has an excellent classic film selection and a fantastic foreign film selection.
A few suggestions? Well one I already mentioned. Father Cadfael is a fantastic series based on the Ellis Peters books. They involve a former crusader in 12th century England who has settled down to become a monk. Unlike most around him he is fairly well educated and is typically called to be the doctor. The show involves 12th century forensics with a fairly entertaining dose of history along the way. It really does show how life went in the 12th century with some great murder mysteries along the way. The original author was very well versed in 12th century history and had written numerous non-fiction books on history. The series is very well acted with some great Shakespearean actors you are sure to recognize. Some BBC shows come off as a tad too pretentious and unengaging. These however are among their best.
Their other great series has to be their adaptations of Sherlock Holmes made in the 80's and early 90's. Once again great acting and surprsingly impressive production values make these a must see. Even if you never quite got into the stories I think you'll find yourself enjoying the TV adaptations. Far superior to anything Hollywood has put out adapting Holmes.
I don't know who (if any) are reading this particular blog. My goal was to have something a little broader and approachable than my main philosophical blog. I truly do love literature. I used to run a poetry mailing list about six years ago where we had a different poem every week. I appreciate basic fiction, but have found the older I get the less I read fiction. I'm not sure why that is, but even fine fiction tends not to get much of a rise out of me. So I apologize in advance for those expecting big discussions of Joyce or the latest "artistic literature." You probably won't find it. On the other hand I may discuss some works of literature that get overlooked. I mentioned three authors earlier which I enjoy but which might not get associated with "literature" that much: Brust, Dickson, & Lovecraft. Hopefully I'll be able to discuss some of their works over the next few months.
I also want to get back to that poetry I used to do. I really haven't read poetry for quite some time. Back when I used to work at Los Alamos all the young single adults had this great activity where every second Wednesday we'd go to some secluded spot with flashlights and a poem. We called it the Dead Poet's Society, after the movie with Robin Williams. Of course we didn't require that the poets be dead to read them. I fact some people read poetry they'd written. One night I read Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham while doing a Jesse Jackson impersonation. But I must admit that I truly loved that activity. I'm thinking of trying to reinstitute it in our ward when it warms up. (We'll it is plenty warm here in Utah for this Canadian boy - I often walk my dog in shorts but everyone else thinks it is freezing for some reason. To me it isn't freezing when it is too warm for the snow to stick to the ground for more than a day!)
I'm curious. Has anyone else had luck setting up a Dead Poet's Society or the like in a regular married ward? Our ward doesn't seem to have many activities and people largely stick to themselves. I suspect in part it is because so many people have kids. But I've found myself becoming quite the homebody after getting married — something I swore I'd never do! (Of course I've also gotten out of shape the last year which was something else I swore would never happen again)
I've put a few of my favorite poems up in the sidebar to the right. Check them out and tell me what you think. One of my favorites is often quoted in Conference and that is The Passing of Arthur. I put the excerpt including the major speech up.
I was asked recently about my favority authors. I'll tell you who they are, but they range the gamut from what was considered pulp fiction to respected playwrites. The very top I have listed on the right. But since those are just a list, I'll discuss a few every few days. Who knows, perhaps you'll consider picking up some new books. (Assuming you are broke from the holidays like myself)
Franz Kafka: How can anyone not love Kafka? Yes, some of his books are books no one has actually finished. (Has anyone actually made it through The Castle?) His short stories though are simply amazing and he straddles so many fences and genres one doesn't know where to start. His works have this creeping dread - dread of society, dread of technology, dread of existence itself. Yet, strangely, there is an odd fascination that I find beautiful and engrossing. In my opinion the quality of his work is inversely proportional to its length. By far my favorite stories are his shortest ones. He also has among the best quotes of anyone. Someone ought to come out with a Kafka quote book.
Umberto Eco: He's a bit of a mixed bag, I must admit. His last few books have been grave disappointments and are actually difficult to get through. Yet his first two, Foucalt's Pendulum and The Name of the Rose are masterworks. He's been copied a fair bit, although the only author who has come close was Arturo Perez-Reverte with The Club Dumas. His non-fiction is an equally mixed bag. His The Search for the Perfect Language is a must read history of "artificial" languages in Europe which in a way are still being played out in both religion and computing. Interpretation and Overinterpretation is a scintillating back and forth with Richard Rorty over whether meaning is closed or open. Ironically the topic of discussion is the meaning of Eco's own book Foucalt's Pendulum. Would you like Eco? Initially avoid his semiotics and philosophy. They are very dry and technical and often a mixed bag anyway. Eco loves engrossing semiotics and when he is on game, there is nothing better. Definitely an author for the well read reader, he holds the interesting position of straddling the line between modernism and postmodernism or perhaps even Renaissance hermeticism and modernism. Definitely an interesting read.
H. P. Lovecraft: "What!" I'm sure most are saying that. What's a pulp fiction horror author doing on the list. Well he may be that, but he is one of the few scary authors I've ever read and one of the few to compare to Poe. He realizes that what is left unsaid is far more impactful than what is said. Thus his works are fantastic accounts where the setup for the mood is everything. Yes they are basically dime store horror novels. But he is an excellent writer. Further his prose is a manifestation of the dread that the massive changes in society at the beginning of the century brought. The change from the certainties of the scientific world view under Newton were far more upsetting than most realize. Whether consciously or not, this massive paradigm shift in the sciences to something few really understand underlays a lot of the stories. His horror also invokes a strong platonic realism in which ideas are more real than the material world around us. Like Kafka he also expresses the dread of the coming mechanistic world, but often through what is unsaid, with knowledge bringing discoveries that are often horrifying rather than enlightening. He also brings a longing for earlier days of colonial times in which the old order is passing. Yes he is a pulp author, but one who truly transcends the genre. (And it is a genre I personally hate)
Tom Stoppard: Anyone who has seen a play of Tom Stoppard comes to love his work. It is humorous, deconstructive, postmodern, existential, scientific, and probably every other buzzword you can think of. He brings dozens of issues into every work. His classic, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is a deconstructive look at Shakespeare's Hamlet through the eyes of two minor characters. It was made into an amazing movie in the late 80's which has yet to see DVD in America! He is actually better known for his screenplays, such as Shakespeare in Love. But they are almost all vastly inferior to his plays. A common theme in his plays is a postmodern engagement with scientific dialog. Combined with this is an existential analysis of life, death and meaning. And he is among the funniest writers you will ever read.
Steven Brust: This is a lesser known author who people really ought to read. He is a master of taking various genres and mixing them in unexpected manners. Sometimes this doesn't work and is a tad tedius. (His use of the old 19th century serials where authors were paid by the word really is painful to read) However his best work involves an assassin in a fantasy world named Vlad. It is a mixing of old 1930's gangster movies and detective novels, with a kind of critical conception of European aristocracy, Hungarian folk stories, and of course magic and dragons. Throw in a tiny bit of philosophy and a whole lot of dialog out of Raymond Chandler and you have a most enjoyable series. Several of his other novels are excellent as well. He has one unexpected take on the vampire genre which actually makes a tired genre interesting. Without a doubt he is my favorite "regular" author.
That'll do for now. I'll probably discuss a few others later. And who knows, maybe I'll review a few of the above's books soon as well.
Someone sent me a rather interesting link regarding Christianity and Hollywood. It is an interview with Barbara Nicolosi. I must confess I don't know who she is but it was a very interesting interview. It comes from more of a Catholic perspective but has many interesting parallels to art and Mormonism. Given the recent renaissance in LDS film I thought some might find it interesting. A few interesting quotes:
...First, in terms of artistry, I think the Catholics, even the ones who are lapsed, have a natural sense of allegory and metaphor that comes from several thousand years of ingrained liturgy. The liturgy is real, but it's also rich in symbols. So you have the people who are fallen away--I'm thinking of a screenwriter right now who's an angry, angry ex-Catholic. He's done so much harm. But he has an instinctive sense of symbolism that gives his writing visual power. I've said to him several times, 'the reason you're really good is because you were Catholic' and when we're alone he'll acknowledge it. I think the liturgical tradition is key to that.
...If we turned over Hollywood to the Christians tomorrow, we'd make worse movies than we're making now because they would mostly be guilty of what Flannery O'Connor called--for Christian--'inexcusable sentimentality.'
Over at AML we've had numerous discussions of the problem of sentimentality in literature and film. Many of the recent LDS films certainly have had their fair share. I must admit that I've actually not been able to force myself to watch any of them, although I'm considering seeing Pride and Prejudice since it appears better than most. (And even got its trailer up on Apple's site) I also have been meaning to see Brigham City for some time as well. That film actually was supposed to be a little more artistic and serious than most of the comedies and so forth being made the past couple of years. It also did quite well outside of the high Mormon areas in the country. Since it managed to avoid the sentimentality that plagues many of the other "me too" films, it probably is worth checking out.
The part of the interview that was most intriguing to me was the bit about liturgy and symbolism. Since Mormons, if anything, have a far richer set of rituals and symbols, I wonder why this is not true of us? Or is it true of us among our more "lapsed" artists like Neil LaBute or Brian Evenson.
Speaking of LaBute, he has stated in several interviews that he has been disfellowshipped over the content of some of his plays. Obviously I didn't know the details of this but thought it may have been someone overzealous over the portrayal of Mormons in Slam or perhaps the extremely strong language and situations in some of his work. (I must confess the only work by him I've seen was Nurse Betty which I did like a lot) I have just learned however that LaBute just did a series of nude photographs of playmates for Playboy. Now I can understand some disagreements over violence, language or portrayal of Mormons in film. But becoming an erotic photography for a pornographic magazine (even if a respected one) seems a bit beyond the pale for any believing Mormon. This was rather shocking to me and more than a little sad.
Here's hoping that he can perhaps channel his basic Mormon sensibilities into a more acceptable form. Orson Scott Card, the favorite poster-boy of LDS literature, managed to do this after having a reputation as one of the most violent authors in science fiction.
This particular site is just in its infancy. However I did want to mention here a few web sites of interest to my literary inclinations. One great one is BYU's Silva Rhetoricae inspired by a classic Renaissance text on rhetoric. It has nearly all of the kinds of rhetorical forms, styles and metaphors with many examples. Its useful to both see the beauty of language in its form of communication as well as understand all those odd latin terms of rhetoric used in philosophy or literature.
An other great resource, while we are speaking of rhetoric, is the following brief history of rhetoric. I'm of the opinion that as we understand the genealogy of our manner of speech we can both better appreciate its beauty as well as utilize it ourselves. I'd not that the power and beauty of rhetoric is, in some ways, a dying art. While we often to do mention it as such, during the Renaissance the prime focus was on speaking well. I look at my own words and at the power of some authors, and I truly feel with Moroni over the weakness of my words.
My favorite poem, without a doubt, is "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" by Robert Browning. I still recall the first time I read it and feeling a chill up my spine with the power the poem had.
I came upon it a little different than most. The poem was the basis for a science fiction series by Gordon Dickson called the Childe Cycle. It was about a planet of mercenaries called the Dorsai who fought small guerilla or brush wars in various human colonies. Yet the author, who did his thesis on various Renaissance studies, takes the science fiction genre and truly transcends it. He views humanity through the lens of three core aspects of living: the man of faith, the man of war, and the contemplative man. In addition, but not focused on, are the man of science and the man of commerce. In the future of the series, people have specialized upon their particular strengths resulting in planets full of fundamentalist Christians, planets full of scientists and engineers, planets full of a a kind of psychologist and mystic pacifists, and a planet full of warrior. Each is one aspect of humanity pushed to its ultimate limit. Behind them all is earth where people live with all aspects of humanity rolled into one. From these strains a new "superman" or next step in human evolution results.
I'll not spoil the series, but it really is remarkable. Some will undoubtedly read it and simply see a well written collection of novels in the military genre of science fiction. But Dickson wants to achieve far more than that. Taking a page from Hobbes' Leviathan humanity itself is at play in the story. Further the series itself is based upon Browning's poem. In it Roland of both poem and the epic French verse becomes two modern incarnations as Donal Graeme and Hal Mayne. Dickson utilizes a lot of mythic overlays, ranging from the Islamic conception of Satan to various archetypes of warriors or prophets as found in western literature. The goal is to see how these archetypes are not just manifestations of a type within individuals, but a basic expression of humanity itself.
Unfortunately the last few volumes in the series lost its way. While interesting in the context of the series, they lack the power and focus that the earlier volumes did. Still many of the earlier volumes won numerous awards and it is very sad that Dickson died before finishing is masterpiece.
Returning to Browning, most others come upon the poem via Stephen King's Dark Tower series. In that collection we encounter Roland once again as an archetypal warrior: a combination gunfighter and knight. The initial volume in the series really was King's best work by far. I'm not a fan of most of King's work, which I find often descends into pulp fiction. They become mere adventure stories. The initial volume, The Gunfighter really had a kind of epic quality to it that captured the feel of Browning's poem. Unfortunately the next view volumes were more hit or miss. Further King used the series to put all of his stories under one master grand narrative. This was unfortunate given the very artful style and composition of the initial story (apparently written while he was still at college). Worst of all King has now rewritten those initial stories to fit into the series better. This is, to me, rather sad. Ironically King said in one place he did this because the original volume was too artistic and pretentious. To me this says all one need about King and is more than a little ironic.
There is something simply magical about the original poem of Browning. It is like the classic poem Invictus where the hero is bloodied but unbowed.
There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met
To view the last of me, a living frame
For one more picture! in a sheet of flame
I saw them and I knew them all. And yet
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came."
We just saw Lord of the Rings today, and I must say I loved it. I don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. So if you haven't, please stop reading right now!
For everyone else I'll just say that it has the gandeur of the other two films but few of their failings. For instance the first film dragged a little in the Mines of Moria. The sense of the progression of time was also off. (Although this was somewhat improved in the extended edition) The second film had a few too many "doh" moments that strained credulity. Also both those films had a few jarring moments where I think CGI was used a little too extensively. (i.e. the test of the ring for Bilbo and Galadriel)
This film had none of that. Yes, even at over three and a half hours a lot was cut from the book. I can think of several important scenes that will likely be added to the extended edition. But it truly works. It is definitely the best made of the three. Further in a year of relatively few good films, I hope it does better at the Academy Awards.
Now that the trilogy is finished and we only await the extended edition of Return of the King I thought I'd add a few thoughts in retrospect.
First off the extended editions are well worth the wait. Many scenes make far more sense in the extended edition. For instance the gifts of Galadriel, which make appearances in the next two films, are only shown in the extended edition. A lot more character motivation is given as well, such as in the meeting of Boramir and Faramir in The Two Towers. I certainly can understand why they were removed. Some drag the flow of the film slightly. That is fine in a book, but not in a movie. Yet, at nearly four hours each, the extended editions are more apt to be watched bit by bit like a book rather than in one extended sitting.
The weakest extended edition by far is The Fellowship of the Ring. It seemed quite a rush job. The scenes are simply dropped into the regular film with no re-editing of the rest of the film to make the flow better. I expect Jackson will re-edit this again sometime. (Although I doubt I'll rebuy it until they come out with the HDTV version in four or five years!) Compare this to The Two Towers where many scenes were edited quite different between the film and the DVD so as to improve the flow of the extended editions. I eagerly await the Return of the King extended DVD. Of course that means I'll not be seeing it until next November at the earliest. Of course waiting that long makes reseeing the film much more enjoyable than watching it again in the summer.
While I understand why they were cut, I must confess that my favorite parts of the book are not in the films. The meeting with Tom Bombadil could hardly have been added to the film, given its length. It certainly would have interrupted the flow as well. Still, this odd nature-god that wanders around permanently good natured, quoting poetry too and fro, was always my favorite as a child. I even enjoyed the collection of poems Tolkein wrote about Bombadil. He is sorely missed.
The other part I enjoyed was when Sam borrowed the ring and tormented the Orcs with it. In the context of the film, they couldn't really do this. They had played up how putting on the ring would attract Sauron's attention and power. But I felt that in the film the Orcs killed each other a little too conveniently while Sam rescued Frodo. The wounding of Shelob was also a little too convenient.
Still the treat that I had the past three years can't be underestimated. Further this has been one of the few series that maintained its quality throughout. The Godfather had that embarrassing third part which seemed only designed to pay off some bills of Copola. (It has some great parts, but its second half was extremely weak)
Return of the Jedi had by far the strongest story of the trilogy and the weakest implementation. Part of this was the direction, far inferior to Empire Strikes Back. However an other part was the beginning of Lucas losing his edge. The ewoks were there only for a cuddle factor. I didn't mind them in principle, but far too many shots were, as in the new trilogy, just for show and a tad too much. The begining, which managed to have some of the best scenes of the trilogy, also felt a bit forced. (Not that it was a bad movie, unlike the new films, just inferior to the first two)
The Matrix had to have been the greatest disappointment of the year. I gave them a break with Reloaded because I enjoyed the philosophy in it even more than the first one. The Levinas overtones combined with chaotic models of an emment mind were intriguing. I felt that like Dark City they may raise the very question of what humanity consists of by contrasting humans with machines. Humans would be that reality which can't be constituted purely by complete descriptions. (The equations of the architect) This made up for fight scenes that went on a little too long, a pointless Rave scene, and a confusing conception of Zion. I figured that they were setting things up for the third film which would continue the threads and wrap them up. Oh how wrong I was. The third film was nearly unrelated to the first two. There was no connection to the ideas raised in them. Neo has odd, unexplained powers. The whole history of Zion raised in the second one is ignored. The fight scenes were lacking, and Neo becomes as boring as could be. Worst of all the cliffhanger of the second film is more or less made pointless. Neo's passing out is not explained. His ability to control machines in the real world is never explained and never really used. The motivations of the machines never make sense. And it is all wrapped up in a tidy confusing, and contradictory ending.
I could go on about all the faults of the last two Matrix films, I'm still rather angry about the third film. But what is the point? The strength of the original film was that the viewer was Neo. Yet in the second that very vicarious sense of discovery and wonder was lost. Likewise, to a far lesser extent, the same was true of the other trilogies I can think of. (Even Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was a camping retreading of the first film salvaged only by strong chemistry between Ford and Connery along with a near perfect young Indiana Jones opening)
I guess after all these embarrassments (and let's not mention Superman, Batman, or many others) it was truly a pleasant surprise that the third installment of the Lord of the Rings was better than the prior two. No small measure when you consider how good they were. How did it manage it? It took itself seriously. It didn't pander to any particular element of the series: not cuteness, not humor, nor set design. Rather it was true to the original while still each having its own tone. Put simply, it respected the material no matter how silly it might have seemed to some. And that respect is something rather rare in Hollywood it seems. Undoubtedly many knock-offs will appear, just as there were for every other successful blockbuster. But I don't think they will ever manage to do what Jackson has done. We can only hope that the rumors of Jackson doing The Hobbit after he finishes King Kong are true.